A Geeky Viewpoint

Thursday Previews (6pm through 1230am showings) earned an estimated $60 million breaking the record held by The Force Awakens.
AMC, Marcus, Regal and other national movie theater chains have doubled their planned screenings over the weekend. AMC alone will have 58,000 screenings this weekend. From a Box Office perspective the added screenings are all in the most inexpensive category, standard 2D. At the local AMC these are 5.19 tickets. This is potentially a big win for families and others who rarely attend movies as well as the chains who will see vast increases in concession sales, the overall box office well not so much.
If this plays out like other similar movies that puts the movie on $302 Million pace.

If Venom plays out like The Amazing Spider-Man in terms of box office it should see a 20% drop from the box office predictions of last week, or $52 million.   And if continues to score in its current range the legs of 2.5 it should have a final domestic take of $135.

While those final numbers are in line with Studio Estimates they are clearly not as high as some prognosticators have suggested.

Movie Poster Courtesy impawards.com

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens in theaters on Thursday evening a predictions of the movies box are all over the board, and the Internet as well.

On the low end, including LucasFilms/Buena Vista/Disney executives are suggesting $125/$135 M Domestic and $300 M Worldwide.   The opposite end of the scale, the high end, many predictors have the movie earning in the range of $165/$170 M and $300 M Worldwide.

To put that in perspective $130 M domestic opening would rank as the 22nd largest in history and $170 M would be the 13th largest.  $130 M foreign opening would rank as the 36 largest while $170 M would rank as the 20th largest.

It is interesting that the predictors who are suggesting a better domestic opening are also suggesting a poorer foreign opening and vice versa.

Large, excited fan base? Check!
no competition at the box office? Check!
Star Power? Check!
Massive marketing campaign that has been carefully constructed not to revel too many details.  Check!
Previous Movie set records at the box office?  Check!
Solid Score on Rottentomatoes.com Metcritic, and every other site? Check!


So why is this movie not going to open better?
Like many prequels Rouge One: A Star Wars Story is stuck in an unenviable position of being stuck in the prequel trap.  The hard core fans know the story well enough to repeat it back to you verbatim, well the regular fans only know the movie is about Star Wars and if they are lucky the plan to steal the Death Star Plans prior to Star Wars; A New Hope.  Now you have to write a script to satisfy both groups.   Very rarely is that done.

Pre-Hypeulation, it just made that term up, but it is an adept description of the problem.   Two weeks ago the hype meter was pegged for this movie.   It was the talk of virtually every Internet sci-fi/fantasy show, the actors were making the rounds on TV, both foreign and domestic.   The hype for other sci-fi/fantasy movies was at a lull.   In the past week we have had trailers for War for the Planet of the Apes, Spider-man: Homecoming, and a few others.   Suddenly instead of being number 1 by a mile, they are number 3 or 4 as the movie opens.

Over all the reviews are good, upper 70's on rottentomatoes.com, 67 on Meta Critic, other aggregate sites are posting similar numbers, but those aren't game changing numbers.   Scores below 50 could scare casual fans away, scores above 85 can draw fans in.   You are in that middle ground where the reviews affect the potential viewership minimally if at all.

The more you know about Star Wars the more you are going to like this film.  We have all heard it from the first viewings, from critics, from fans, from me, and that is going to scare the not so hard core fans.

So where does this film end up after the first weekend?
I think internationally this film is going to do better than expected.    It has the features that international audience crave, when it comes to multicultural cast, solid directing, a good story, and the added bonus of an American funded high budget.     International reviews have been more positive pushing the upper 80's (out of 100) on aggregate sites.    $175 M to $215 M are the ranges if the models hold true and best guess is just under $185.

Domestically this film is not going to have some of the high end numbers some people are expecting.   Even with its build audience its looking more towards the lower end of the scale.   Models in the $125 M to $145 M seem in line with $137 seeming to be a best guess.

Domestic - $137
Foreign - $185
Worldwide - $322

X-Men: Apocalypse opens on May 27, lets take a quick look at expectations in the Box Office.

It needs to be noted the film opens on Memorial Day Weekend, a four day weekend which makes predications a bit fickle as it generally messes with comparable films.

Comparable films open between $86 M and $121 M with an average of $97 M for the three day weekends and $115 for a four day weekend.

The film is opening against Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter which is not a direct competitor but very close competitor when it comes to market share.

The film had solid hype and was well received in the early stages of production however concerns on the look of Apocalypse seem to stall the hype machine for extended periods of time.    Initial reviews where pretty negative, on May 5 the first wave of reviews on rottentomatoes.com put the film at 38 and metacritic at 44.   However subsequent reviews have been much better on May 14th the score on rottentomates.com had increased to 58 and metacritic to 51, which is a fairly substantial jump for both considering the number of reviews.  
What is more interesting is the current scoring of audience reviews, the film is actually the highest rated film in the Franchise.   Yes it is early, but the film is tracking about 5% higher in early fan reviews than it predecessors at this same juncture.

An interesting side note, the length of the film has changed.   On May 1st the film was listed as 2 hours 16 Minutes, in the past few days many sites now list the movie as 2 hours 24 minutes.   It leaves the question on whether all reviewers saw the same cut of the film.

X-Men franchise saw new life with the release of Deadpool earlier this year.   The irreverent R-Rated film set a new standard with $132.4M opening weekend.    Many of suggested a potential Deadpool bump similar to the Avengers bump that all the Marvel films saw.

Four day Memorial day Weekends generate between $215M and $320 M dollars when adjusted for inflation.   Two tent poles released on the same Memorial Day Weekend the numbers are from $275 to $320 M.   If we assume the standard 70% for the tent poles this gives us a $192 M to $225 M for the films.   That in theory suggests $115 M to $135 M on the four day for X-Men on the four day and $93 to $109 M on the three day.

However I think competition on opening weekend and potential holdovers push the numbers down domestically.  

$87 M Opening Weekend ($110M Four Day)
$217 M Domestic Total
$570 M International Total
$787 M World Wide.

Comparable Films

$199M USD

Competition

Zero - No one wants to contend with the big kid on the block

Timing on the Calendar 

No effect based on comparable films using same weekend

Audience Fatigue

-5%, as much as it pains me to say this with several bad films recently the audience is in that worried stage. While this effect will have little impact on opening weekend I am guessing overall we could see the film peter out faster.

Early Hype

No Effect

Late Hype

Movie is sitting at 98% on Rottentomatoes.com with 50 reviews.  

Currently professional Box Office Tracking numbers have this film gaining momentum as release approaches.   A few weeks ago the tracking numbers were mid $150 M USD and it grew to $182 M USD and as of this morning $200 M USD and the author of the report suggests it might be $250.

My approach suggests two tracks, on the "low" end the track comes in in the mid $180 M USD, there is some rounding discussions but we will just say $185 M USD for the purposes of this discussion.   The high end of the track comes in at $220 M USD. 

I have not heard a chorus of reviewers suggesting that film must be seen in Imax 3D or even 3D, which is a little unusual.  It could be that people are just assuming that is standard now OR the film is more thought provoking and the effects are in essence secondary.   Either way I don't think as many people are going to see this film in 3D as some other films recently.   I think that is the Achilles heel for this projection.

Opening Weekend $197 M USD
Domestic Total $518 M USD
International $877 M USD
Total $1.395 B USD

Comparable Movies - $45 to 55 Million

In my fan-mail I received a question from James who would like to know:

What are the early [box office] projections for the upcoming super-hero movies? 

Limiting ourselves to the seven films that are currently in filming or post-production for this question lets take a look at these films:

Avengers: Age of Ultron: The biggest limiting factor to breaking every know opening weekend domestic box-office record ever conceived is the lack of large format screens.   The movie will lack some of the luster of its predecessor and clearly has no competition in the box office for weeks before or weeks after.
Prediction - $225 Million Opening Weekend Domestic / $590 M Domestic / $1.1 Billion Overseas

Ant-Man: A quirky Marvel film with no direct connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is considered a part of phase two of marvel films.  

Prediction - $75 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $190 M Domestic / $325 M Overseas

Fantastic Four: A remake of the 2005 campy film less family friendly dropped into a very competitive month.   I doubt the remake will sell more tickets than the previous two movies only inflation will help raise its mark, some.

Prediction - $65 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $140 M Domestic / $275 M Overseas
I have a feeling right now that I am being generous with the Overseas total.  I know that several early predictions have roughly the same number but I am not sure the model is accurate for this film.  

Deadpool: An R Rated super hero film with a lot more social buzz than the others in that category.   A lower budget than many of those films, good social buzz so far.

Prediction - $35 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $90 M Domestic / $200 M Overseas
Hard to predict an R rated movie in this genre, how much potential audience is being blocked out. 

Captain America: Civil War: The Avengers reassemble in a Captain America story line which most likely sees our hero killed at the end of the movie.

Prediction - $150 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $500 M Domestic / $700 M Overseas

X-Men: Apocalypse: The closing of the trilogy of the younger cast bringing in several new faces.

Prediction - $125 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $400 M Domestic / $700 M Overseas

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Our lone DC film on the list, with out much to compare to at the moment.   The buzz is negative or neutral at best at the moment.   Release dates flopped around several times.

Prediction - $125 Million Opening Weekend Domestic / $300 M Domestic / $400 M Overseas

I am putting this out a little early because multiple sites have already placed their predictions.

As many of you know I have a formula that is generally pretty accurate, there occasionally a small hiccup, but with Avengers: Age of Ultron there is a big hiccup to start with.   So this in a way is fun with numbers.

I like to look at five or six comparable movies, with A:AoU I have exactly 1; Marvel's Avengers ($212 M Adjusted).

Competition - None, Zero Zilch Nada.   I have never run this formula without having some sort of competition factor.  Furious 7 opens up April 3rd a full month before and that is the closest thing to competition in the any of the Genres A:AOU has.

Super Hero Weekend Opening - The first week in May has become a traditional opening weekend for Super Hero Movies.  

Audience Fatigue:  It's difficult to gage, a large part of my wants to scream that audiences are getting bored with Super Hero movies, but the numbers don't quite add up that way. 

Early Hype: A:AoU has spent the past year in the top 10 movies on IMDB list, including multiple stints at number 1.   The trailers have a combined 200 Million Views.  Actors have been asked questions a year plus before the release.   Marvel has had several announcements.  I couldn't rate the hype ay higher.

Late Hype: We are a little early for that.  

But there is another category that has to be added for this film, capacity.   I cannot believe I have to actual take this into consideration.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron has the ability to be show on 4600 to 4850 screens in North America (Considered Domestic).   The record is somewhere around 4400 screens, there is little question that AAoU will break that record, the question is how many more screens can be found.  There are only 7600 Screens so 4400 would just under 60% of the total screens.  With so little competition ...
With 4400 Screens over three days you have a maximum revenue of $275 Million; 4850 Screens puts it a shade over $300 M. 

My Formula would suggest that Avengers: Age of Ultron should open at $242 M ($237M/$265M) which would be a 90% Capacity on the screens for three days, that is unheard of. 
It is not simply a solution to add more screens because additional screens will be Standard Definition screens and have a far lower ticket cost... 
At 4600 Screens capacity numbers suggest $212 M
At 4850 Screens capacity numbers suggest $217 M
At 5000 Screens capacity numbers suggest $221 M

Unless there is a mass upgrading of theatres going on I don't know about I have to figure the capacity problems in North America limit A:AoU to between $217 to $221 M on opening weekend.  With a complete domestic run of $775 M and a world wide number $1.93 Billion.

I should note that I predicted $170M for opening weekend of Marvel's The Avengers, which was on the low/average side of predictions of $175 or so.  The Movie opened to $207 shattering expectations.  If I am off by the same amount that puts A:AoU in at $264.5M which is the pretty darn close to the high side of my prediction via the formula.

Lately my Box Office predicting mojo has left me high and dry.   I have completely underestimated both The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Godzilla and now it's time to look at X-Men: Days of Future Past.

My early estimate put the film at $89 M for three days give or take a couple of million.

How do I feel about that number?   Not as good as I did back in April. 

We are looking at a four day weekend and have had two extremely successful box office opening films this month.  

The question that follows is which track will the audience take?   Will the movie follow the more localized X-Men track ($89) or follow the express route shown by the Avengers?

Breaking down the days
Thursday $7.5M to 10M
Friday $23M to $38M
Saturday $32M to $41M
Sunday $20M to $30M
Monday $15M to $30M

Three Day - $82 to $119
Four Day - $97 to $149

So I am going to stick with my estimates ($89 three day and $107 four day), but a lot of other observers have this film tracking a lot higher, in the $125M to $150M for the four day.  I hope I am wrong for a third movie in a row.

Get ready for the discussion.

The largest percentage drop from a major Marvel production from opening weekend to the movies second weekend is X-Men Origins: Wolverine at 69% (dropping from $85 to $26).

Several sites are predicting a 70% drop in ticket sales for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, one site (behind paywall) has suggested the movie should consider the second weekend a success if it his $25 million (74%).  

Historically bad Super-Hero movies (X-Men: Last Stand, Green Lantern) drop about 60 to 66%, the drop they are talking for TASM2 is almost unprecedented.  Harry Potter: The Deathly Hollows part 2 being the lone exception but as the 8th movie in a series people wanted to see it no spoilers before have a successful 12 week run.
On the flip side good Super-Hero Movies (Marvel's The Avengers, Batman Begins) tend to drop about 50%.  

Variety, Entertainment Weekly and a couple of other sources are indicating that Hollywood Insiders are projecting X-Men: Days of Future Past to earn $125 Million on opening weekend.

Wow, what a number.

A projection I saw, again a unnamed Hollywood Insider (and we all know what I think of them) laid out the ground work for a projection with a bell curve, the standard deviation (-1 to +1) was 115 to 135, extended deviation (-2 to +2) 100 to 150.  
For those that want to know a standard deviation of -1 to +1 results in 70% of the most likely scores while extended deviation projects to be 95%.  

My base prediction currently is just a tad under $90 Million, however that doesn't include an Avengers Bump, IE I am not using the Avengers movie in my formula to make a prediction.  There are reasons for this.   When I use the Avengers movie within the formula my model is between $130 and $150 for an extended deviation and $135 to $140 for a Standard Deviation.   That just didn't pass the sniff test for me when I did it and the Avengers was a movie on the edge of the comparable movies. 

Okay Variety posted an article with predictions for Godzilla with "Stomping towards $60 Million."

Here is the deal, $60 isn't out of the question, but isn't likely.

If you look at the comparable films from the 1998 Godzilla, last years Pacific Rim, other similar title Transformers (2007), Robocop (2014), Prometheus (2012) you see a trend for opening weekends, a low of $21 for the Robocop reboot and a high of $70 for the first Transformer film.    The math here builds a comparable base at just over $42 Million.

Talking about competition is a little weird for this movie.   Two weeks prior is the release of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the following week is X-Men: Days of Future Past.    Traditionally the Spider-Man movies are doing about 25% of what the opening in the third weekend with no competition.   That not a good sign usually, however the buzz surrounding The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not good right now, this is an indicator that the competition may not be what it normally is.  Usually I would hit at -$9 million, but I am thinking that is to harsh, going to say instead a -$3.

The Date is a neutral date, no modifier.

Audience Fatigue is not really an issue here.   There haven't been many successful Giant Monster, robot, android movies recently.   In looking at this there is actually might be a positive for Godzilla.

Early Hype is almost non-existent to low for this film, but the late hype has been building, that a very good sign.

However the math suggests $49.5 Million for an opening weekend.   If I were to put a rang on this I would say $45 to $58.

That said I am predicting early for this because its already getting predictions, however things can change, a strong word of mouth and the like.   Right now the buzz seems to orchestrated and the audience doesn't usual buy it.  

When it comes time to build a Box Office Projection "I" am trying to give out three numbers;     Domestic Opening Weekend, Domestic Total, and International Total; which in turn gives us the final Box Office Total.

Domestic Opening Weekend is an important metric for Film Studios (primarily the six major studios), the numbers are used to determine post release marketing strategies, number of screens booked in the next two weekends, and various other little

Domestic and International Totals are important for the secondary studios, the ones that actually make the movies, the actors, directors, and other film making staff as it determines likelihood of future budgeting, budgets for next movies, salaries and so on and so forth.

These three numbers are derived from a series of factors including but not limited too:

• Comparable Films
• Competition
• Timing on the Calendar
• Audience Fatigue
• Early Hype
• Late Hype

Lets look at "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" which will be released next week Domestically.

Comparable Films:

• Spider-Man
• Spider-Man 2
• Spider-Man 3
• The Amazing Spider-Man
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Thor: The Dark World
• The Wolverine
• Iron Man 3

In this case we have a good deal of comparable films, that close fit into our current model.   Sam Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy staring Tobey McGuire, the reboot also staring Andrew Garfield (and most of the cast of this one), and four recently released Super-Hero movies in the past year.

Competition:

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Week 5)
• Divergent (Week 3)
• Transcendence (Week 2)
• Belle
• Walk of Shame
• The Protector 2

Here we see a direct competitor in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, two additional Sci-Fi movies still in early general release, a new Action Movie a Romantic Film and a Comedy. 
Transcendence and Divergent have proven they should be extremely minimal factors, and the audience for Belle and Walk of Shame are not the same as Sci-Fi, Super-Hero Action movie.   The Protector 2, which also will be in it first weekend, while a action movie, is a small budget sequel that virtually no one outside of its core audience is aware of.   It will be slightly more of factor in comptetion than say Belle, but not much.   The real problem for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a well received movie that going into The Amazing Spider-Man 2's opening weekend will have spent 4 weeks at number 1.   Clearly without this competition the Amazing Spider-Man 2 would do better, considering you are looking at roughly $10 million in ticket sales for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 
I wouldn't be surprised if Captain America: The Winter Soldier finished the week in the number 2 position.

Timing on the Calendar

The first weekend in May has historically been a Super-Hero movie release date for the past half-dozen years or so.   This means it usually takes less effort to get your secondary audience in the theater because its time to see a "Super-Hero Movie"   As opposed to releasing movies in April or February.

Audience Fatigue

In the case of The Amazing Spider-Man the secondary audience is fairly fatigued.  There was the Short Turn around on the Spider-Man Reboot, there have been 5 major stand alone - single - Super-Hero movies in the past year, the sales number were way do to the previous Sam Raimi trilogy of Spider-Man Films.  

Early Hype

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 first trailer had 8 million views on YouTube in the week, it had good press on the various media, a strong social media presence.

Late Hype

While the Amazing Spider-Man 2 initial trailer had 29 million total views on YouTube, the second and third official trailer were much weaker.   Social Media presence, including retweets, blog postings are down.   The initial reviews have been lack luster. 

[Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is] among the best superhero films ever made. Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is... not. Come year's end, it'll struggle to even rank among the top three superhero films of 2014.  - Simon Miraudo Film Critic Quickflix

Putting it all together

The comparable films all opened to approximately $103 million thus we have a baseline number.
While not in heavy competition, there is a very direct competitor in Genre (Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 10) and some near competitors (-4).
A traditional Super-Hero movie release weekend (+7.5)
Audience Fatigue appears to be pretty big for this movie (-25%)
Early Hype was all very positive (+10%)
Late Hype is not so good (-15%)
Total $68

So my number that I think would be the goal for $68 Million on opening weekend.   I however expect a final marketing push providing a few extra butts in the seats, so I pushed my number from $68 to $72.

I do a similar process for projecting Domestic Totals, International totals however is  little more hit or miss for me.   I can't see the Hype in Iceland or South Korea, so I rely on guidance from other sources and looking at comparable numbers.
Generally I have been fairly close (within 15% give or take) so its not a bad way to look at those numbers.

I like to point out my numbers usually in the same ballpark as major predictors like Box Office Mojo, variety and other major industry sources.   In the case of Amazing Spider-Man 2 I am within 5% of Box Office Mojo's predictions.  We differ on X-Men: Days of Future Past as they think it will do much better opening weekend than I do.

My Numbers right now for X-Men: Days of Future Past
Comparable - $87
Competition - -$9
Summer Opening - +$10
Audience Fatigue - -5%
Early Hype - +5%
Late Hype - +15%
Total $89.4 Million

Box Office Mojo published it's 2014 Summer Predictions.

Amazing Spider-Man 2

• BOM - $225 Domestic and $480 International - Total $705
• Mine - $180/210 Domestically and $500 International - Total $700

X-Men: Days of Future Past

• BOM - $290 Domestically and $470 Internationally - Total $760
• Mine - $219 Domestically and $366 Internationally - Total $585

Guardians of the Galaxy

• BOM - $180 Domestically and $250 Internationally - Total $430

I have not predicted Guardians of the Galaxy as of the date of this post.

Domestically the opening weekend should be in the 75 to 95 million Range, with a guess that 89 is about right.  

In the past three years we don't have true comparable, based upon schedule and genre.   Last year Iron Man 3 dominated the market, but it was one of 2 Sci-Fi movies for over a month.
  
With Godzilla opening the weekend before and Amazing Spiderman 2 four weeks prior there is a chance of a little Sci-Fi burnout taking place.  My guess is its Godzilla who takes it in the shorts in terms of attendance.

The last two movies in the series have been low in terms of turnout, and their numbers have been in the mid $50s.   The reviews of both were slightly positive but with a negative undertone.     The trailers for the last two movies underperformed, while X-Men Origins: Wolverine had very well received trailers and was extremely disliked by audiences. 

Domestically I am guessing, based on comparable films that low $200 would be acceptable, the under over about $219.

Internationally the X-Men series has been better received, guessing that 55 to 60% of the receipts will be international markets.  That suggests in the neighborhood of $585 Million.

Edit - April 24
In looking at several other predictions its clear that the other predictions are giving X-Men: Days of Future Past an "Avengers Bump" that I am not giving out.   In my mind the "Avengers Bump" is applied via of the comparable Super-Hero movies in my formula, however for clarity if I use a true "Avengers Bump" the numbers become $130/150 opening, $360 Total Domestic and $1.05 Billion International.   I like many other predictors don't think ticket sales that high are out of the question just not very likely (maybe 25% chance.)    We should know more where the Late Hype meter is in about two weeks.